Patio Girls

Everything hurts. My phone's timer counts down the precious few minutes left on my break. My neck feels like a board, my lower spine feels crunched up into itself, and the balls of my feet feel like they're about to roll off. Say it Ain't So by Weezer goes off alerting me that it's time to punch back in. Sunshine Cafe's concrete floors aren't changing any time soon. I check my makeup in the bathroom before heading back out.

My mascara is starting to rub off under my eyes giving me a look of perpetual exhaustion. Curly hair pokes up around my head in the humidity despite the tight bun I wound it into this morning. No number of bobby pins stand a chance against this heat.

I wet my hands and try to slick back my hair a bit more. Now with the wet hair and the ringed eyes, I just look like Dracula. I try not to think about my tips.

Mags gives me a once-over. She calls me around the counter.

She tells me they aren't busy enough this afternoon and that they need to cut my shift. I look at the full patio. I don't argue.

I just wish I had known before I started my break. I would have left sooner.

Sunlight spills across a dozen other downtown patios. I sit at the one across from Sunshine. I know Mags won't come outside. She doesn't dare. It's why she hires so many gorgeous women. It's why my shifts keep getting cut.

I can't make myself look the way the other servers look. I don't know how they do it. They look dewy while I look oily. Their makeup doesn't run. They get hours.

I sip on my iced macchiato and glare through my sunglasses at Sunshine.

Not a cloud passes in the sky.

"Hey, Sara!"

By the time I look up, the metal seat at my table is being screeched back on its heels. I'm met face-to-pastry stain with a black Sunshine Cafe apron before I register it's Lina.

Lina and her sister, Delilah started at the cafe about six months after I did. I trained Lina. Mags trained Delilah. Mags always trains the ones she says have "real earning potential." Really meaning, that they're the servers most likely to get people through the door. Patio girls.

I train the grunt workers. Like me. The girls who serve the tables closest to the kitchen. We go back and forth between serving and helping out the line cooks. We don't say anything because getting fewer tips is better than no tips at all. Besides, all the patios want the same girls Mags does. If not at Sunshine, we'd be kitchen girls somewhere else. I'm sure of it.

Not Delilah.

Delilah would be put on any patio.

Lina sits down. "You get cut too?"

I nod. Lina doesn't take the hint. She orders a drink and stuffs her apron in her purse. "I knew this would happen. It always happens. Delilah doesn't get it, of course. She tells me, just put a little effort in. Ugh."

My body softens. I imagine how hard it must be getting ready next to someone who looks like Delilah every morning. I picture her perfectly straight, meticulously dyed pink hair and her dark doe eyes. Delilah never looked tired. Other than her hair, she hardly looked like she even tried at all. It made me want to scream.

I ask Lina, "How did you ever survive high school?"

Lina laughs, "If only you knew!"

I smile but I don't understand.

Lina shakes her head, "Delly lives her whole life by her looks. She goes to sleep early, juice cleanses, drinks tons of water, uses expensive skin cream and calls it allll self-care... but she still spends every morning and night inches away from the mirror obsessing over wrinkles. She started talking about botox last night as a 23rd birthday gift to herself. I think my mom almost cried."

She shrugs. "Yeah, Delilah gets tips. But she acts like it's her whole job to be pretty. Even at home."

Lina continues, "She cries more nights than I do. And her shifts get cut just as much as mine, really. No one can be the prettiest person on the patio every single day. There's always someone a little shinier, a little prettier."

I look at Lina and feel like I'm seeing her for the first time.

I ask, "So what do you do?"

Lina takes a sip of her drink. "You can spend all that time, money, and energy trying to get your turn. Or you can not play the game. Just talk to the girls. They're nice. Hell, I'm sure one of them will give you their patio shift every once in a while. Forget about Mags."

She smiles, "Dress up when you want to. Don't when you don't. The tips and hours will come either way. Besides, this is all just temporary, right?"

The job, the insecurity, the youth...

Lina's skin glows as the sun slowly drops. Her eyes shine from behind her bangs. Her cheeks flush from the drink. Mascara rings her eyes too but I only notice it now after I press myself to look for it.

I realize if I looked at Delilah's eyes, I'd probably find similar rings.

Lina pays for my drink. I try to stop her but she rolls her eyes. "We're all exhausted. What are friends for?"

Across the street, Delilah waves at us before starting to stack the patio chairs away for the night. Lina nudges me, "Why don't you come by and have a drink? We can all bitch about Sunshine together."

I wave back at Delilah.

I tell Lina wine is on me.